What Sustainability Reporting Requirements Do Businesses Need To Worry About In 2023?
Chicago, IL, February 2023 - Now that we've made it through the first month of 2023, it feels like a good time to reflect on some of the progress we are making socially/environmentally, and look out at what's coming next.
Upcoming & Current Regulation
In January of this year alone….
The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) updated its 2023 rule-making agenda, setting April as the new estimated release date of its final climate-related disclosure rule. This rule would require “consistent, comparable, and reliable” disclosure of climate-related risks and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from public companies. This proposal was originally set to be released last year, but was delayed due to technical issues that prevented some public commentary from being submitted.
In the EU, the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) was signed into law and took effect on January 5. The CSRD “will require detailed qualitative and quantitative sustainability disclosures from a substantially expanded universe of companies”. Right now, US-based companies with EU subsidiaries should be preparing to meet these requirements. In the near future, US-based companies that operate internationally will also need to be ready.
New York unveiled a Cap-and-Invest Program on January 10, which “sets an annual cap on the amount of pollution that is permitted to be emitted in New York”. Every year, the emissions cap will be reduced to meet the state’s reduction goals. While the “cap” side of the program involves taxing businesses that go above their allotted amount of emissions, the “invest” side of the program will put money into sustainable development efforts, such as helping businesses electrify operations and chase energy efficiency.
Current Challenges
While regulation continues to increase, implementing climate-related reporting rules can pose challenges for businesses who may not have the resources, data, or domain expertise to support this type of reporting.
The increased demand has not yet been met with a higher headcount in the sustainability department, which often is comprised of too few people to crank out the increased number of required reports at an increased level of transparency and scrutiny. On top of that, this change and challenge does not only affect large, public companies. It also impacts vendors in their supply chain, as more and more businesses need to disclose information about their supplier operations as well as their own.
However, measuring and gaining visibility into environmental impact are the first and most critical steps toward creating real progress. Without a standardized way of measuring, visualizing, and comparing business impact, it's nearly impossible to understand where and how changes should be made.
How We Can Help
IN BOLD PRINT.'s carbon accounting platform and data services make it easy for businesses to measure and share their sustainability journey. Our platform automatically calculates Scope 1, 2, & 3 emissions and displays this information in visual dashboards that can be shared with interested stakeholders.
To get the required data from our customers, companies can walk through a self-guided onboarding with simple, easy-to-answer questions. Think of this as the 'TuboTax' of carbon accounting. Now, if a customer would rather outsource that work, or otherwise needs help prepping their data for this effort, they can engage our team for data services. We'll take care of the whole process!
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Free Readiness Assessment
Want to know what you have to do to be ready for all of these increased reporting requirements? Our team is happy to help, with a free readiness assessment. We will tell you the most common steps, technologies, and challenges, so you can take this knowledge with you to solve in-house, hire a competitor, or sign onto our platform.
